


Burned by the Angels

by romanticalgirl



Series: behind the song [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:04:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written based on the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burned by the Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 6-1-08

Maria meets Frankie for the first time at the carnival, fall nipping at the air like Mrs. Bernstein’s dog, sharp teeth that sting but never break the skin. He is standing next to one of the ride operators, doing his best impression of dangerous in his too-tight jeans and t-shirt, his hair slicked back and styled, and his eyes flashing like warning signs.

She stands in line and watches him hustling and harassing the other girls as they edge closer to the swinging cars. His hand sends each one rocking as the girls climb in, waiting for the wheel to turn. He smells like burnt sugar and tobacco as she gets close, the smoke of his cigarette hanging palely in the glittering lights. He looks her over, eyes unreadable. Maria feels like she’s still wearing her school uniform, his eyes making her feel younger, more exposed, innocent. She doesn’t hear her friends as they laugh and talk, doesn’t hear anything but the beat of her heart, doesn’t feel anything but the heat of his eyes.

When its her turn, he offers his hand and helps her step into the car, cutting in front of her friend, Evelyn, and sinking down on the seat next to Maria. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even introduce himself. He just kisses her as they hang suspended like stars at the top of the Ferris wheel.

**

She meets Joe later that night beneath the boardwalk with sand between her bare toes. Frankie sits on a log worn down to shiny silk by time and tide, his cigarette hanging unlit in the corner of his mouth, his hand splayed on the wood. Joe finds them like he’s got radar where Frankie’s concerned, and he doesn’t say anything as he steals the cigarette from Frankie’s mouth and lights it, exhaling smoke. His mouth curves like Frankie’s, lips hinting at something that’s not quite a smirk and not quite a smile, but somewhere in between.

They dance to the distant music, faded by the time it reaches them, muted by the sound of the waves singing their own song against the shore. Joe takes her hand and pulls her close, arms around her and bodies touching. She keeps waiting for one of the nuns to appear with threats and rulers, but there’s only Frankie, tugging her away from Joe and taking his turn with her in the stiff, cold sand.

There’s a bottle of something that Frankie has, and it burns and chokes the first time, then slides down smooth. Fireworks and flashing lights spark along over the lake, and there are more stars than Maria’s ever seen, shining up in the sky and in the promise of the Roberts boys’ eyes.

**

The night Joe turns eighteen is a blessing and a curse. Maria shows up early in the morning with a lemon cake with sweet white icing that gets sacrificed to the slam of the door as Frankie pushes out of the house and past her, flying down the steps with hell on his heels.

Joe’s at the kitchen table, staring at the phone on the floor, the receiver off and the harsh buzz of the dial tone filling the room. Maria sits beside him and reaches for his hand. He doesn’t look up or away, just curls his fingers around hers until it hurts. Maria closes her eyes against the pain and eventually he relents and releases her. He gets to his feet and rights the phone, replacing the earpiece before he looks at her for the first time.

“Dad’s dead. Explosion at the plant.” Whatever noise she can make sticks in her throat as Joe leaves the room. He heads for his bedroom and shuts the door behind him. Maria follows and they make love for the first time, the bedroom door open because Maria can’t bear to see it closed. Days bleed into one another, and she forgets to go home, forgets how to leave, and she gives up being a good Catholic girl on Sunday morning when she wakes up to find Joe in Frankie’s room, curled up tight against his brother, skin to skin and blood against blood. She forgets to think as she lies down beside them, her body warm beneath the thin white t-shirt and the modest white panties she wears. It grows warmer as Frankie reaches out and pulls her close, no questions asked and the only answers they need here between the three of them.

**

Trouble comes every weekend with booze and bars and cars. They spend them dancing and the music plays fast and slow and they all take turns until Maria’s not sure where Joe ends and Frankie begins. The nights end with Joe alone as Frankie stays out late, finding fights and other women he’s too ashamed to bring home, or like Joe says, he just gets tired of them before they get that far. Maria tries not to be jealous, content with Joe’s arms around her, Joe inside her, but there’s something that doesn’t feel right without Frankie in the next room.

Sometimes the phone rings at night, and Joe always stiffens in her arms, and she knows he’s afraid it’s another call like the one that took their father, but when he answers, it’s always a bartender or a girl wanting to know who’s going to pick Frankie up before he falls down for good. Joe eases out of the bed and gets dressed and goes out to start the car, not even bothering to tell Maria to go back inside anymore when he gets there and finds her in the front seat, robe pulled tight around her shoulders. Sometimes it’s the cops calling, and money changes hands before Frankie’s in the back seat. Maria moves in the back with him and wraps her arms around him, reassuring him. He fights her as long as he can, which is never very long, and the three of them always end up on the couch, leaning against one another until sunrise when something has to change and someone has to make the coffee and the light coming through the curtains is too bright for Frankie to bear.

Joe turns his head when Maria kisses Frankie, and she never lets things go further when Joe’s there. They both seem to understand that she belongs to each of them, both of them all at once, but there are lines drawn between them that none of them can see. Frankie makes them visible, dividing lines when he comes home with a paper in his hand and a uniform on his back. 

Neither of them say a word; Joe just holds Frankie close, tight enough that it makes Maria’s chest hurt, though not tight enough that Frankie can’t get away. She and Joe get married the day Frankie ships out for camp, his boots loud on the church floor as he stands up for Joe and kisses their joined hands, his breath warm against the cheap, simple gold bands.

His train leaves the station in a cloud of smoke and a loud, mournful whistle. Joe stands beside her, her husband, his hand clenched into a fist on her hip, refusing to wave or say goodbye. Frankie doesn’t look out his window, doesn’t glance their way, and Maria knows he’s already across the world in jungles she can’t imagine and in a war she doesn’t understand.

Joe does his best to make a life for them, earning a living that costs more than they can afford. She doesn’t miss it when it’s all gone, certainly not as much as she missed him when it was everything they had. She’s not sure that the highway patrol is any better now that she has guns and drunken brawls and speeding bandits after him instead of threshers and blades and worry killing him slowly, but she holds him close every night and kisses away the long hours in the car and makes love to him like it’s their last night together.

There’s a shooting his first week on patrol – a bar fight gone too far with good old boys and boys home from the war. Maria doesn’t ask questions about the job, glad not to need to know the details. Joe does his best to leave it all at the station and in the car he parks outside the house they’re struggling to pay off. Being a patrolman doesn’t require all of their money going back into the next harvest, but it also isn’t as much money to begin with. Maria doesn’t complain. She just clips coupons and makes everything go a little farther than it should have to go.

Joe’s out on a call the day the knock comes. Maria sees the vehicle through the window, Army green with a white star stenciled on the side, shining like gold in the sun. She opens the door with damp, shaking hands and drops the dishtowel when the outside brightness fades from glaring to shadows to a face she knows as well as her husband’s.

Frankie makes a sound and Maria’s in his arms before it can become a word or a reality. She holds him close and breathes him in, her mouth finding his as he stumbles inside and kicks the door closed behind them. They don’t need words as the hallway dissolves into her bedroom, her bed and they melt into one another.

When Joe comes home, it’s bar-b-que and beers, back slapping and gentle teasing. There are no questions asked and no lies told, and they end the night dancing barefoot on the yellow-green grass of the lawn. Frankie never quite smiles and Joe smiles too much, and no one was the same beneath the close-cropped hair and uniforms, and everything left unsaid.

**

She knows something’s happened when he comes home later than he should and doesn’t say anything. He just drinks his beer down in two long swallows and opens a second before he even looks at her. When he does, his eyes are dark and he shrugs before he looks away, telling her that Frankie’s gone, and he isn’t coming back. She doesn’t ask, just wonders if this is what her life will be now – questions she’ll never ask and answers she’ll never know. 

She gets the story from another patrolman and the details from beside a hospital bed, listening to the young man’s girlfriend tell her what was said and what was done as the monitors hum in the background, offering the possibility that he’ll live and Frankie might come home some day.

Maria finds her rosary in her jewelry box and stares at it for a long time, fingering the beads before she pulls it free and tucks it into her pocket, finding the church right where she left it. She crosses herself and bows her head, thinking of the boy and Joe and Frankie and, God forgive her, herself, as she prays for the first time in years.


End file.
